Kaffir folk-lore, The Story of Sikulume., sentence 34

They said: “You have been dreaming; there is no one here; how can such a thing be?”

Who acts: boys, You, one, thing · What happens: say, dream, be · Speech: someone speaks here

This is a sentence of «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, The Story of Sikulume.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (boys, You, one, thing), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

Mova's own parse. This tree may be wrong.

The tree

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	They	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	2 said	nsubj
2	said	say	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	:	:	PUNCT	_	2 said	punct
4	“	"	PUNCT	_	8 dreaming	punct
5	You	you	PRON	Case=Nom Person=2 PronType=Prs	8 dreaming	nsubj
6	have	have	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=2 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	8 dreaming	aux
7	been	be	AUX	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part	8 dreaming	aux
8	dreaming	dream	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	2 said	advcl
9	;	;	PUNCT	_	11 is	punct
10	there	there	PRON	PronType=Dem	11 is	expl
11	is	be	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	2 said	conj
12	no	no	DET	PronType=Neg	13 one	det
13	one	one	NOUN	Number=Sing	11 is	nsubj
14	here	here	ADV	PronType=Dem	11 is	advmod
15	;	;	PUNCT	_	21 be	punct
16	how	how	ADV	PronType=Int	21 be	advmod
17	can	can	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	21 be	aux
18	such	such	DET	PronType=Ind	20 thing	det:predet
19	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	20 thing	det
20	thing	thing	NOUN	Number=Sing	21 be	nsubj
21	be	be	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	2 said	parataxis
22	?	?	PUNCT	_	21 be	punct
23	”	"	PUNCT	_	21 be	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	where	roles by
1	say speech: ask	past	boys = boy		vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic
2	dream in a quote	present · perfect · progressive	You		vn cognize-85 «NP V PP.topic»: agent=Agent
3	be in a quote	present	no one	here; there	vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
4	can in a quote	can	such thing		vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme

One row per clause the reader finds. «not said here»: a role filled from the clause above. «roles by»: a VerbNet class and frame when one fits the verb, else the reader's rules on the tree.

Text: «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, Project Gutenberg book 71335 (public domain in the USA). Tree: Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. Frames: Mova's frames reader (prag), the chapter read in order.

This page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/9/34/

🌲 Kaffir folk-lore, The Story of Sikulume., sentence 34

The tree

Pragmatics

Kaffir folk-lore, The Story of Sikulume., sentence 34